10/3/2013 Weekly Health News: E. coli, Parasites, Cancer, West Nile, Child Birth

Choosing  Lab Tests Wisely

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has released its third list of commonly prescribed tests and procedures that may not be necessary. The evidence-based recommendations, part of the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation Choosing Wisely campaign, were released on September 24 and are:

"Evidence shows that much of the care delivered in America could be duplicative or unnecessary. In fact, according to a report from the Institute of Medicine, up to 30% of healthcare may be duplicative or unnecessary

Source: http://www.medscape.com/

PSA Screening Does More Harm Than Good,

To the ongoing debate over whether routine screening for prostate cancer reduces prostate cancer mortality comes a new analysis that suggests that it does more harm than good

.Source: http://www.medscape.com/

New Method Detects E. coli in Water

A research team from the Univ. of Alberta has made a public health breakthrough by developing a device that detects E. coli bacteria in water much faster than previous methods. Mechanical engineering professor Sushanta Mitra’s team developed a sensor capable of detecting the potentially deadly bacteria in minutes — clearly improving on existing technology, which takes 24 to 48 hours to do the same job.

Source: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/

A Farewell to Parasites

Despite a fierce civil war, scientists led a 14-year grassroots campaign that has eradicated a parasitic disease from northern Sudan.

In 2002, they said it was impossible. At an international conference held in Atlanta, 64 experts on public health, human rights, and finance concluded that ridding Africa of river blindness—a parasitic disease more formally known as onchocerciasis—was unachievable.

Source: http://www.the-scientist.com/

New Technology Presented at OSA's Frontiers in Optics Meeting Will Help Fight Cancer

Scientists seeking new ways to fight cancer often try to understand the subtle, often invisible, changes to DNA, proteins, cells, and tissue that alter the body's normal biology and cause disease. Now, to aid in that fight, a team of researchers has developed a sophisticated new optical imaging tool that enables scientists to look deep within tumors and uncover their inner workings.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/

Removing One Protein from Adult Cells Enables Them to Turn Back the Clock to a Stem-cell-like State

Embryonic stem cells have the enormous potential to treat and cure many medical problems. That is why the discovery that induced embryonic-like stem cells can be created from skin cells (iPS cells) was rewarded with a Nobel Prize in 2012. But the process has remained frustratingly slow and inefficient, and the resulting stem cells are not yet ready for medical use. Research in the lab of the Weizmann Institute's Dr. Yaqub Hanna, which appears in Nature, dramatically changes that: He and his group revealed the "brake" that holds back the production of stem cells, and found that releasing this brake can both synchronize the process and increase its efficiency from around 1% or less today to 100%.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/

Severe Blood Infections During Childbirth on Rise

Sepsis-related deaths also increased sharply over decade, researchers say.

In a disturbing trend, rates of severe sepsis and deaths from sepsis during childbirth rose sharply in the United States over a 10-year period, a new study reveals. Severe sepsis—which can lead to multiple organ failure—occurred in about one in 11,000 women.

Source: http://consumer.healthday.com/

West Nile Virus Infections Top 1000 in US This Year

Cases of West Nile virus have been steadily developing across the country this year, continuing even as fall approaches. This mosquito-spread disease has now caused infections in nearly every US state during 2013.

Source: http://www.dailyrx.com/

Antibiotic Resistance: A Final Warning

On Sept 16, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its report Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2013—their first ever report on this subject. From the outset the tone is clear: in his foreword, Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, states that “antimicrobial resistance is one of our most serious health threats. Infections from resistant bacteria are now too common”.

Source: http://www.thelancet.com/

Food safety group demands probe in tainted alfalfa

A food-safety advocacy group demanded on Friday that the U.S. government investigate how a Washington state alfalfa crop became tainted with a genetically modified trait that was illegal when the seed was purchased.Tainted alfalfa